Approaching Mental Well-Being in Diabetes

A few short days after I was diagnosed with type 1 diabetes, I was visited by the hospital social worker. She introduced herself before asking me if I needed to talk about anything.

Quite honestly, nothing was wrong. After a week of exhaustion and severe thirst that led to DKA and a type 1 diagnosis, I was relieved to simply feel normal again. I reiterated just as much.

This social worker still didn’t believe me, suggesting that Mum and Dad could go and sit outside if that would make me feel more comfortable to open up.

Psychological support does seem to have this stigma attached to it and I’d be lying if I said that I didn’t feel slightly offended at the time. The one thing that I don’t like about psychologists is how they look at you so analytically, rather than as a friend. This is where solid experience in diabetes would come in handy, and peer support has certainly helped to fill some of those gaps for me.

During my first four or five years with diabetes, I thought that I was doing okay. Yet thinking about how far I have come today in terms of my emotional well-being, I have second thoughts. I am so much better connected, informed, and supported than I once was. In hindsight, mental well-being could have been better approached when I was diagnosed.

I personally wish that my diabetes healthcare professionals had asked me how are you going more often. Not how are your blood sugar levels going. Not how is your diet and exercise going. Not how are the number of hypos you are having every week going, either. A new diagnosis is a huge thing to deal with. A little empathy and understanding would have gone a long way in helping me to acknowledge that sometimes it might be okay not to be okay.

Instead of giving me those funny analytical looks, I wish the social worker had taken my word that I was okay. Without any element of trust in the patient-healthcare professional relationship, attempts to address my mental well-being wouldn’t have been very well received. Case in point.

How about addressing some of the things that I might expect to feel down the track? I don’t remember any of my diabetes healthcare professionals ever talking to me about the concept of burnout. Nobody addressed feelings of failure, frustration, or isolation that I’ve felt as a result of living with type 1 diabetes.

Above all, I wish I were given some pointers towards what other people with diabetes are doing to live well with their condition. Joining closed Facebook groups, jumping into forums, participating in weekly #OzDOC chats on Twitter, reading blogs, and going along to events in person.

It took me five years before I began to uncover some of the powerful tools that have helped me to feel that best that I ever have with my diabetes today. With a better approach to mental well-being on diagnosis, I could have reached the place where I am today much sooner.

Frank was diagnosed with type 1 diabetes as a young adult in 2010. As a passionate writer, Frank began blogging as an outlet to share his experiences of living with diabetes. He hopes to combine his background in Marketing towards working with people with diabetes in the future. Frank lives in Western Australia, and blogs about his life with diabetes at Type 1 Writes.